Module 1: Kinds of Learning

Application-level learning
Dave Merrill has proposed that it is useful?for prescribing methods of
instruction?to think of three types of content that can be learned on the application
level:

Concepts

Procedures

Principles

The term, "concept", has many meanings in our every-day language. Here we are
interested in one particular meaning: A concept is a group or class of particulars
which have something in common. These are concepts:

Shoe

Resistor

Pencil

Paragraph

Fight

Democracy

Anger

Lever

A procedure is an ordered sequence of steps for accomplishing
some goal. These are procedures:

How to write a paragraph.

How to add fractions.

How to operate a machine.

The term, "principle", also has several meanings in our every-day language.
Here we are interested in one particular meaning: A principle is a relationship
between two or more changes. It can be a causal, correlational, or natural-order
relationship. The following are principles: